Podcast
The Common Good Podcast
Hosted by Brian From · EN
The idea of “the common good” has a rich history within the Christian church. It’s the notion that, as we pursue Jesus in our lives and in the lives of others, we are fulfilling God’s purposes for His creation. This pursuit can be messy. It means rolling up our sleeves and creating space for hard conversations about real issues that impact our lives. Things like parenting, marriage, finances, politics, art, and culture. On The Common Good, Brian From creates space to have these conversations, to sit with the big questions that we all have, to sometimes disagree, but to always look for the chance to create common good, by following after Jesus. Brian welcome listeners to join them in these conversations, to bring their own questions, hopes, and struggles, and to ultimately share in a journey to see God’s design for all of us fulfilled.
170episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Jen Wilkin on Aging, Purpose, and the Church's Calling
3w ago00:08:55Tap to summarizeOur culture spends billions trying to convince us that aging is something to fear—or even hide. But what if the Bible tells a very different story? Brian Fromm sits down with bestselling author and Bible teacher Jen Wilkin to discuss her new book, Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World. Together they explore how modern culture equates growing older with irrelevance, why Scripture presents aging as a gift rather than a curse, and how Christians can embrace every stage of life with purpose. Jen also shares how caring for her mother at the end of life reshaped her understanding of aging, why caregiving is central to the Christian life, and what churches must do now to prepare for America's rapidly aging population. Whether you're entering midlife, caring for aging parents, or leading a church, this conversation offers a hopeful, biblical perspective on growing older with wisdom, dignity, and faith.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Sabbath, Romans 12 & Courage in the Lonely Hour
3w ago00:57:00Tap to summarizeA serial Guinness World Record holder from Idaho just balanced 195 rolls of toilet paper on his forehead for 30 seconds — and Brian From is genuinely impressed by the teamwork involved. From there, a rich and timely piece from Mere Orthodoxy on rest: Americans have accepted a mindset where busyness is the norm and vacation is the only escape valve, but that's not what Jesus modeled or taught. Sabbath isn't a two-week getaway once a year — it's a regular rhythm woven into the week, the month, the season. Brian challenges listeners to identify where rest actually fits in their daily lives, not just when they can afford to disappear. Then a meditation on Romans 11:33-36 and the great "therefore" of Romans 12:1 — in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice — unpacking what it means that our entire response to the gospel is worship, not performance. A pointed segment on the fine line between conviction and condemnation, and why so many Christians live under shame that scripture never intended for them to carry. And a closing devotion from the late Dr. Charles Stanley on loneliness — drawing on Elijah on Mount Sinai, Jesus praying alone in Gethsemane while his disciples slept, and the handoff from Moses to a terrified Joshua — with a single, grounding promise underneath all of it: His companionship is real, present, and enough.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →10 Questions Every Kid Should Ask About the Bible with Todd Chipman
3w ago00:09:59Tap to summarizeHow do we get the Bible? Why should we read it? How do we interpret it? Todd Chipman, author of 10 Questions About the Bible: 30 Devotions for Kids, Teens, and Families, joins Brian From to answer those questions in a way that actually works for junior high students, high schoolers, and their parents. Todd walks through the arc of his book — from the general (where did the Bible come from?) to the specific (how do we read it well?) — and makes a case that's easy to miss: we're doing kids a disservice by feeding them only a verse a day. Scripture is meant to be read in bigger chunks, the way chapters flow into each other, the way John 9's blind man cast out of the synagogue sets up John 10's Good Shepherd who welcomes him in. He also has an encouraging word for the adult who hasn't opened their Bible in years and doesn't know where to start: God's word is living and always fresh, so just start today, maybe skim a little, and let it become infectious. Families are using the book around the kitchen table; Sunday school classes are making it a curriculum; book clubs are forming around it. Find 10 Questions About the Bible at crossway.org or Amazon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Finishing Well, Leaving a Church & Theoretical Christianity
3w ago00:58:06Tap to summarizeSpain wins the World Cup over Argentina in extra time — one goal over eight games of tournament play — and Brian From gives it its due before moving on to what's actually on his heart this Monday. He opens with a moment from Sunday morning worship at Compass Church's Hinsdale campus that stopped him cold: singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" in the middle of a set of newer songs, and the way that declaration of God's transcendence and otherness still cuts through everything else. From there, a reflection on three weeks of preaching and the particular pressure of standing behind a pulpit: it becomes very difficult to preach sermons you're ignoring in your own life. Brian shares his message on finishing well, drawn from Paul's words in 2 Timothy 4 — I have fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith — and applies it to the decisions we make today that shape who we'll be at the end. A practical, balanced piece on why people leave churches, why they shouldn't, and how to do it well if the time truly comes — including a direct challenge to have the difficult conversation with your pastor before you go. And a closing piece on theoretical Christian living: the evangelical allergy to the practical, the habit of burying every application in so many caveats it changes no one's life, and the call to a faith that doesn't just stay in the armchair but moves from the pew to the pavement.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Control, Smoke & Shaquille O'Neal's Ecclesiastes Moment
4w ago00:57:49Tap to summarizeCanadian wildfire smoke is still blanketing the Midwest, and Brian From opens with the theological thread underneath the inconvenience: control and comfort are the two great idols of American culture, and weather has a way of stripping both bare at once. On a happier note, his daughter is home from five weeks of intensive Arabic study in Washington DC, all three kids are under one roof for the next month, and Brian takes a moment to speak directly to parents of young children: the days are long, but the years go fast — don't take it for granted. Relevant Magazine ranks the top ten fictional pastors on television, and the winner is Reverend Timothy Lovejoy from The Simpsons — a punchline who is also, the piece argues, the most honest portrait of ministry burnout television has ever managed. A nostalgic look back at Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life campaign of 2002, when twelve thousand American churches read the same book and preached the same sermons simultaneously — and what it says about our capacity for unity then and now. And then the unexpected closer: a viral clip of Shaquille O'Neal reflecting on his divorce from inside a 76,000 square foot house where no one else was home. No kids in the gym, no one in the rooms. Brian holds it up as a modern reading of Ecclesiastes — the man who had everything, admits he was greedy, and was left with nothing that mattered. What are you building your life around? Only one thing fills the house.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Odyssey: Matt Damon, Casting Controversies & Why the R Rating Surprises with Adam Holtz
4w ago00:10:13Tap to summarizeEverybody's talking about The Odyssey — Christopher Nolan's sweeping epic starring Matt Damon as Odysseus — and Adam Holtz from Plugged In joins Brian From to give the full breakdown. The film generated significant pre-release controversy over casting choices including a Black actress as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as a warrior, plus concerns about a more progressive interpretation of Homer's source material. But the early numbers tell a different story: 96% from critics and 97% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Adam notes something worth acknowledging: the movie's version of Odysseus is actually more redemptive than the original — a faithful family man trying to get home to his wife and son after 20 years, not the arrogant womanizer of Homer's text. The R rating is the real curveball: the violence is intense but not gory, and Adam traces the rating almost entirely to three F-words — one over the PG-13 threshold — in what he reads as a very deliberate creative decision. His bottom line: know your family's convictions, because this R-rated film is less problematic than a lot of movies that carry that same rating. And teaser: Little House on the Prairie is coming up next week. Full review at pluggedin.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Wildfires, the ESPYs & Finishing the Race Well
4w ago00:55:47Tap to summarizeCanadian wildfire smoke is blanketing Chicago and stretching all the way to New York, and Brian From turns the haze into a parable: the decisions we make set off domino effects that ripple far beyond us, affecting people we love and people we'll never meet. Then a personal update — his son's summer baseball team won their league championship in what turned out to be the last game before he heads to college, and his daughter returns tomorrow from five weeks of intensive Arabic study in Washington DC before a nine-month Fulbright scholarship in the fall. Life is moving. Last night's ESPYs honored a Michigan missionary who pitched in Major League Baseball — a story about what happens when fame and faith intersect in unexpected ways. A meditation on contentment drawn from Philippians 4 and a Gospel Coalition piece on the abundant life. And a closing sermon preview from Brian's role as campus pastor at Compass Church's Hinsdale location, centered on one of the most obscure and haunting figures in the New Testament: Demas. He's mentioned twice as part of Paul's team — and then disappears, described in 2 Timothy 4 as having "loved the present world" and deserted Paul entirely. Brian's challenge: the goal of the Christian life is not to start well. It's to finish well. Don't be Demas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Summer Activities & Bible Translation with Melissa Paredes of Wycliffe
4w ago00:09:36Tap to summarizeIt's a hundred degrees outside and your kids are asking what's next — Melissa Paredes, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Wycliffe Bible Translators, has an answer that's actually good for them. She joins Brian From to talk about Kate and Mac, a free series of printable, downloadable resources Wycliffe has been producing for twelve years: kids travel the world with a 14-year-old missionary kid named Kate and her pet macaw Mac, learning about different languages, cultures, and how much God loves people regardless of where they live or what language they speak. Activities include decoding exercises that simulate what it's like to encounter scripture in a new language, games, crafts, recipes, and devotionals — all available monthly at wycliffe.org/kids. Melissa also shares her own story: a missionary kid who moved overseas at 12 and lived there through 18, she credits those cross-cultural years with shaping everything about her worldview. For parents of teens and young adults, Wycliffe's Purpose 7-9 resource — including an interactive quiz, devotional, and discussion guide — is available at wycliffe.org/purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Preaching, Apathy & the Heart of Ministry with Mike Bullmore
4w ago00:09:29Tap to summarizeWhat does it mean for the gospel to be functionally central — not just theologically true in the abstract, but actually animating the way a pastor preaches, thinks, and lives? Mike Bullmore, author of The Heart of Preaching: The Functional Centrality of the Gospel in the Life and Work of the Preacher, joins Brian From to answer that question. A veteran pastor who planted Crossway Community Church 28 years ago and now preaches at Park Community Church in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, Mike makes a simple but convicting diagnosis: the moment a preacher reserves gospel proclamation only for evangelistic sermons and then shifts to discipleship content for believers, he's already gone off course. The gospel isn't just the entry point — it's the flywheel that keeps everything else moving. He also speaks directly to the pastor who has quietly grown apathetic, lost the awe, and is grinding through sermons on fumes — with a word from Psalm 103 about God's compassion and a surprisingly practical prescription involving the Gospel of Mark and the book of Leviticus. Find The Heart of Preaching at Amazon or crossway.org.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Faith, Community & Small Class Sizes at St. Peter Lutheran School with Julie Messina
4w ago00:10:32Tap to summarizeBack to school season is just around the corner, and Brian From sits down with Julie Messina, principal of St. Peter Lutheran School in Schaumburg, Illinois — a school that has been educating families for 189 years and sits on 30 acres in the middle of the suburbs. Julie talks about what makes a private Lutheran school distinctive: daily prayer, weekly chapel, classroom buddy programs pairing older and younger students, and class sizes averaging around ten students per teacher. She pushes back on the assumption that private Christian schools offer less than public schools — St. Peter has Lego club, chess club, cross country, volleyball, basketball, cheer and dance — and shares what alumni consistently say when they come back: "High school was a breeze. You prepared us so well." Brian also highlights the school voucher program available through AM1160 at elevensixtyhope.com for families concerned about tuition, and Julie points to the Kirsch Flat scholarship fund — supported by an annual golf outing — for additional financial assistance. Visit stpeterlcms.org to schedule a tour or learn more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →